Cheap cafés? That takes the cake for Peyton creditors

Creditors of Peyton & Byrne, the catering business set up by the Great British Menu judge Oliver Peyton, will be left with a sour taste after its recent sale via a pre-pack administration. The report from Deloitte’s administrators says that 185 unsecured creditors are owed almost £7 million, of which £4.2 million is owed to the Business Growth Fund. The sale of its main catering unit to Sodexo realised £1.4 million, while its five bakery cafés were bought by the Peyton family for a mere £120,000. How quickly things can change. Only 12 days before it went bust, the group assured me that talk of financial trouble was wide of the mark.